Throughout
his career, Getis’ interests in urban and population geography led him to
develop tools to solve important problems in analyzing spatial patterns.
In turn, the use of those tools and models have helped others understand how
spatial analysis can enhance work in their own field of research. As a
result, Getis has been a great evangelist for geographic applications in other
disciplines such as economics, criminology, public health, regional science,
and demography. His work has taken him to lecture and teach at
prestigious universities around the world – many without formal geography
departments – about the importance of geographical analysis. As a result,
he has broken many research barriers and helped enhance the respect for
GIScience as a discipline.
Dr. Arthur (Art) Getis is awarded a University Consortium of Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) Fellow status to recognize his outstanding impact on the field of GIScience as well as for his service to UCGIS. Getis is a Professor Emeritus of Geography at San Diego State University. He received his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Washington in 1961. He has Master and Bachelor degrees from the Pennsylvania State University. Within GIScience, Getis’ specialties include spatial statistics, pattern analysis, urban geography, and disease and crime clustering.
Getis’ record of sustained contributions over the past
forty years distinguishes him among scholars in GIScience. Getis has
authored more than one hundred refereed journal articles and book chapters
about various aspects of GIScience. Several of the publications, such as
his work on local statistics (with J.K. Ord), have been cited hundreds of times
– with “Analysis of spatial association by use of distance statistics” showing
over seven hundred citations in Google Scholar! Getis has also authored
or edited eleven books - most notably Models of spatial processes: an
approach to the study of point, line, and area patterns (Getis and Boots,
1978), Point pattern analysis (Boots & Getis, 1987),
and Spatial econometrics and spatial statistics (Getis
et al., 2004).
In
addition to Getis’ tremendous contributions through his research, he has also
made a significant contribution with his service to UCGIS. Getis served
on the UCGIS Board of Directors from 1997-2001, the Executive Committee from
2002-2004, and was UCGIS President in 2001-2002. During this time,
he also served as the UCGIS representative to the Center for Spatially
Integrated Social Science (CSISS) from 2000-2004.